


fragile flame

by dollylux



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Character Study, Cold Weather, Gen, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Isolation, Malnutrition, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:34:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8894386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: Lukas and Philip's last Christmas apart. (Pre-series.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Exaggerated_Specificity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exaggerated_Specificity/gifts).



> day four of 12 days of xmas. prompt: isolation.
> 
> so, this is my first philkas. i'm so nervous i can't feel my fingertips. this is more character study than anything, but it's also about their journey to each other and the spaces they will eventually fill in each other's lives. 
> 
> title from jewel.
> 
> for leslie, for giving me these boys. there will never be enough thank yous. <3

**Christmas Eve - 2015**

**Queens, New York**

 

There’s always an angel on the top of the tree at the Shea house.

Anne had found it somewhere, a sidewalk sale, a thrift shop, in the basement of her dad’s house when she’d cleaned it out right after she had Philip. Philip’s grandpa had died the day he was born. In the same hospital, even. Anne hadn’t liked him much, has never said but always she looks like something about him haunts her, has left fingerprints on her.

She hadn’t named her son after him.

The angel is real porcelain and painted by someone who’s surely long dead now, the serene face chipped off and faded, nightmarish in its blankness. One of her wings is broken, snapped right in half the year Philip figured out he could climb on top of the coffee table to get to the entertainment center to get to the top of the tree, if he stood on the very tippiest tips of his toes. 

What had been the good intentions of a seven-year-old to draw the angel’s face back on with his six-pack of broken, waxy generic crayons had turned into a near-homicide, a potential, total destruction of his mama’s favorite knick-knack.

Luckily, the angel survived, only a wing sacrificed to Philip’s kind heart. Anne hadn’t yelled, hadn’t even looked upset at Philip, a boy who only needs to see sadness in his mama’s eyes to feel his own heart shatter in his baby bird chest.

The angel is up there still, even now, almost a decade later. She’s worse for wear and dusty in the folds of her flowing robes, a flash of red then green then blue flickering over her face from the lights on the tree below.

Philip watches the lights for awhile, counts the time between their blinks and memorizes the pattern of it, making up a song in his head to go with the beat. It’s quiet in the apartment and their one heater is at his mama’s feet where she’s curled up on the couch, sleeping pale and open-mouthed, and still. So still.

She’s barely here anymore, lost in a dark sea of whatever pills she’s on, in whatever Billy brings over and gives her behind the locked door of her bedroom. She doesn’t eat for days at a time, and she doesn’t know to care that Philip doesn’t either.

He knows that if he wanted to, he could go down to the Faith Mission and get a hot meal, something to stick to his ribs as he waits out the hours until dawn, until Christmas morning. He shifts on the arm of the couch and glances over at Anne, staring at her in the colorful dark until he’s sure he sees her breathing, sees the unsteady, weak lift-and-fall of her small chest. 

She won’t move for the rest of the night and maybe for most of the day tomorrow.

His stomach growls selfish and viciously loud into the silence, and he grits his teeth at the sound, at the reminder that he has a body he has to deal with, to take care of. He got used to looking out for himself a long time ago.

 

He sticks close to the buildings he passes, wearing a broken pair of headphones he found in a garbage can, the cord wadded up and tucked into the pocket of his jacket. They serve their purpose of keeping people away, of dampening the sounds of the city, of making him feel centered and safe, even in the middle of Jamaica after dark.

The line at the mission wraps halfway around the block, and Philip stops and watches from across the street, eyes moving over all the homeless people in line, the ones he usually sees dotting the streets on his way to school, all the ones who eat their food from dumpsters and survive off the spare change of strangers.

He shifts in his Converse, a gift from the church where his mom goes sometimes, and stretches his toes out in them, reminding himself that there are no holes in them, that his socks are warm, that he ate breakfast this morning at Mrs. Clayton’s apartment.

He gives a final, long look at the warmly-lit, open door of the mission and turns away, heading back down the street. The expressway is loud even now, the constant rush of cars deafening and sending up a rush of frigid air that has Philip wrapping his arms around himself, hunkering down in his hoodie and trudging up Van Wyck towards 115th.

He can see the homeless under the bridge, can see their trashcan fires and their huddled, curved shoulders, and he makes sure to keep his head down as he passes them, allowing them the dignity of their misfortune, letting them go about their night without some punk kid’s eyes on them.

There’s a cafe a dozen or so blocks from home, one that stays open late most nights with an owner who never kicks Philip out, no matter how long he stays. The lights are being turned off just as he’s jogging across the street to get to it, and the owner steps out, keys jingling as he locks the door behind him.

Philip stops mid-stride, his face hot with disappointment and anxiety, but he doesn’t turn away quick enough, accidentally catches the guy’s eyes before he can hurry down the street toward home.

“Hey,” the guy calls, friendly, tired. Philip stops, hands in tight fists in his pockets, his eyes falling closed as he takes a deep breath. He turns back to the guy and opens his eyes, giving him as much of a smile as he can find tonight.

“Hi,” he replies, shuffling a little closer and coming to a stop a few feet from the guy. “Headed home?”

“Yeah. Nobody in for hours. Figured it was time to call it a night.” The guy pockets the keys and turns his whole body toward Philip, giving him more singular attention than he’s had in days. He shrinks away from it, shoulders pulling in, his whole body tense from the sudden interaction. He only realizes now that he’s still got his headphones in.

“Okay, well. Have a good one,” he says, already several steps away when the guy replies.

“I can make you some coffee at my place. If you want.”

Philip stops again but doesn’t turn this time, doesn’t want the man to see his face before he can school it into neutrality. 

“Why?” he asks flatly, tensing even more when he hears the guy’s boots scuffing on the sidewalk as he gets closer.

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” He’s in front of Philip now, head lowered to try and catch his eyes. Philip glances up, meets them head-on.

“What do you want? In exchange for the coffee?” He lifts his head and sticks his chin out, too knowing about these kinds of bartering situations, about what things cost when you don’t have any money. He watches the guy’s face, looks for the signs in his immediate reaction.

There it is: the flick over Philip’s face, the hesitation on his full mouth, the disinterested glance down at the rest of his body, all happening in seconds before the guy opens his mouth to reply.

“Nothing,” he says, easy, such a loaded lie. His smile is feline, greasy, much more confident now. “Just come on up. Get warm for awhile. Have you eaten?”

“Actually, um,” Philip says, dropping his shoulder and side-stepping to get away from the arm trying to drape over his shoulders. “I was just getting some coffee to take home for my mom. She worked a double and she wants to stay awake long enough to open presents after dinner.” 

“Sorry to hear that,” the guy sighs, hesitating and looking Philip over, like there’s a way to get what he wants anyway, like there’s gotta be a side entrance here. “You sure you don’t wanna come over? Not even for a few minutes?”

The guy’s old enough to be his dad, for sure. Maybe even older. Philip actually considers it, thinks about having the guy’s thick cock in his mouth, about the comforting motion of sucking dick, the delicious panic of not being able to breathe when they realize they can push into his throat, the warm wash of jizz over his tongue, into his empty belly. He swallows down the instinctive spit that’s flooded his mouth, already shaking his head as he walks away, backwards across the quiet street.

“Thanks, but, uh. I’ve gotta go. Merry--” The word _Christmas_ dies on his tongue as he turns and practically runs to the other side of the street and disappears down an alley, shortcutting the trip home. 

 

They found a body on the roof last summer, three days after Independence Day.

It had been swollen, bloated with exposure to the sun, cooked inside and without a name. Philip had watched them load it onto the ambulance from the window, wondering sickly what it had smelled like, how they’d killed him, if he’d been home when it happened.

“Don’t you go up on that roof,” Anne had said, chainsmoking and scared out of her wits at the news, pacing in her tanktop and wrap skirt. “Nobody’ll be able to find you up there.”

It’s not even the tallest building on the block, but it’s close enough to the sky that he can see the faintest glimmer of stars, the sky stained a sickly orange from light pollution over the velvet blue beneath. The ground is freezing when he lowers himself down and leans back against the brick, the cold biting into his skin, prickling all along his cheeks, the backs of his reddened knuckles.

Sometimes the sounds of the city are comforting, a reminder that there are always other people out there no matter how lonely he feels, that life is going on beyond whatever’s happening to him, whatever he has going on in his own mind. But sometimes, like right now, it’s a reminder of exactly how alone he is, that he’s separate from all of them, every single one of them. That no one knows he’s up here, that all those sounds would be happening and those people would go on living even if he didn’t, that the city wouldn’t miss a beat if his heart stopped right this second.

He closes his eyes and wraps his arms around his thin legs, thighs pressed to his starved belly, wishing to the entire expanse of stars that he could be anywhere else but here. Anywhere at all.

 

 

**Tivoli, New York**

 

Bo always leaves bruises.

He doesn’t mean to. Lukas has never told him, doesn’t have the heart to. It’s not his fault that his love is rough, that his claps on Lukas’s back and squeezes at his shoulders leave marks behind on delicate skin. Lukas bruises easy. It’s not anybody’s fault. And anyway, he got his shock-pale skin from his mom.

Another bruise tonight, after they put the Christmas tree up and Lukas hung the ornament from their very last Christmas together: an Olan Mills shot of the three of them, Mom with her hair down and cranberry red lips that match Dad’s tie while Lukas grins big and gap-toothed in his reindeer sweater. He’d loved that damn sweater.

They’d stood and stared at the tree for awhile, fire crackling nearby, Johnny Cash crooning Christmas songs from Lukas’s iPhone on the deck, Bo’s arm wrapped around Lukas’s shoulders. They’d both been staring at that ornament, at Mom there in it, smiling and vibrant and alive. 

If Lukas tries real hard, sometimes he can still smell her. Powder fresh and white flowers. A little bit of hairspray. A mom smell.

Bo had hugged him, clutching and emotional, and he’d clapped him on the back so hard Lukas lost his breath for a minute. He’d held on tight and focused on breathing normally, focused on not crying into Bo’s flannel shirt, on stilling the tremble in his body by the time Bo pulled away.

“Night, son,” Bo had whispered, another bruise-squeeze on his arm, and then he was gone.

Lukas aches with love, fingers pressed to the bruise, as he stares up at the tree, at the glittering star on top, at the meager pile of presents beneath. It’s just the two of them now, no need for a big production for anything, but his dad is a stickler for tradition.

He used to think on what Christmas would be like if Mom was still here, if she was around to cook and decorate and sing along to the radio while she hung Christmas cards on string above the doorways. He wonders what she’d get him for Christmas. What he’d get her. If she would bruise with her love, too.

The ground is already frozen under the fall of his heavy boots, the wind freezing him to the bone. The sky is a breathtaking explosion of stars, the moon a full, heavy drop of silver just now rising above the trees. First full moon on Christmas in decades, and it’s bright enough to light the path across the field, bright enough for Lukas not to need the flashlight on his phone to make his way.

His bike is gassed up and ready to go in the barn, but he continues past it and into the woods, following the dog-path between the tangle of trees, taking the trail that he knows just as well as every street and backroad in this county. 

He remembers the last Christmas when Mom was here. Or at least he thinks he does. The pictures tell sketches of the story, show him in Batman pajamas with messy brown hair and a goofy smile opening present after present while Mom looks on, wearing red pajamas and a Santa hat and the most in-love smile as she watches him. 

But it’s more than that and so it has to be memories: making cookies the night before, gingerbread and sugar cookies and the peanut butter kind that you stick Hershey kisses in. He remembers green icing on his fingers as he decorated the shaped ones, each one done carefully, each sprinkle and M&M placed in exactly the right spot.

He had made an unholy mess.

He remembers turning the pages on _The Night Before Christmas_ , well-worn pages because it had been Mom’s book before his, and he’d tried to read along to prove to Mom that he could. He remembers curling up in bed with her, her hands in his hair as he tried his hardest not to fall asleep, listening in vain for the sound of hooves on the roof. 

He remembers.

A movement in the woods makes him pause, every single muscle in his body stilling as his eyes dart fast to the left, trying to see into the dark for a shape, for the intruder. A deer walks closer to him, stepping into the moonlight and nosing around in the crunchy, dead grass for something fresh to nibble on.

Lukas stays perfectly still, his heart calming from its wild race in his chest, and he can barely contain his shivery amazement when the deer gets only a foot or two from him, close enough to touch.

It’s a doe, a full-grown one, and she doesn’t appear to have any regard or concern for his presence as she sniffs around for food near his feet. He wishes he had something, a carrot or an apple or something, just to see if she’d eat from his hand. A hand that he lifts, so, so slow, so careful, and places on her back, just below her shoulders.

She exhales in a huff, stirring up dead leaves, but she doesn’t move.

He relaxes a little and lets his hand sink into thick, soft fur, stunned that he’s being allowed this, that she’s letting him touch her. She’s so warm, especially as the wind drags a hard shiver out of him, makes his muscles tense so much it hurts, and he daydreams for a single instant about what it would be like to curl up with her and sleep right here, outside and under the full moon. 

Guilt slips in, fast and clean as a knife, reminding him that he’s a killer, that he’s shot deer that look just like her, shot a fawn once, even. He doesn’t deserve her trust, her gentleness. Doesn’t deserve to know what she feels like, so warm and alive.

She walks away then, slow and easy as she’d come, his hand sliding along her back until she’s gone, disappearing into the shadows, deeper into the woods.

He exhales like he’d been holding his breath the whole time, and the warmth on his cheeks leaves silvery tracks that soak into the collar of his jacket.

The woods give way to a field that used to have cows on it, back when his grandpa was alive, but empty now, quiet. The longer parts of grass get dragged around in dry crackles by the punishing wind, and Lukas sniffles, wipes at his runny nose as he steps out in it.

Standing here, in the middle of the field, the lights from the house so far away that he can’t see them, Lukas feels like the last person on earth.

He sinks down into the grass, hidden now as he stretches out on his back, arms flung out to his sides.

It’s so cold, so bright out that he can see the Milky Way, a dense dusting of stars that streaks across the glitter of the others, the field of the sky stretching on forever and ever, the moon shining so clear that it almost hurts his eyes.

He finds Cassiopeia and then Ursa Major, narrowing it down to the Big Dipper and then to Polaris, and it’s when his eyes light on that bright spark of light that he smiles, big and bright as the moon.

Dad always said that Mom used to find the North Star on Christmas Eve, used to get real poetic on the drive home from church about the Wise Men following that star to baby Jesus. Mom used to be religious but in her own quiet way, in a way of songs and prayers for people who really need it and love as big as Jesus’s heart. 

Lukas had believed for the longest time that his mom had died and become an angel. He used to picture her up in the sky, in a sky just like this, with wings and a halo, perched on a cloud, smiling down at him as he slept.

When he was eleven, Ethan Matthews told Lukas that people didn’t become angels when they died. They just went to heaven. He never told his dad, but he never prayed anymore after that day.

There’s still a ghost of warmth on his palm from the deer, and he curls his fingers into his palm, savoring it. He closes his eyes and lets the silence envelop him, lets it swallow him up and surround him. It’s so quiet he wonders if he’ll ever hear a voice again, if anyone will ever touch him again. If he’ll wake up and he’ll be alone, not a soul left in the world but his.

He wonders if anyone could ever love him, could ever look at him with as much heartache-adoration as his Mom does in those pictures from their last Christmas. Wonders if anybody could love him even though he bruises easy, could love him gentle enough not to leave bruises of their own.


End file.
